"Another few months, you won't be able to get up off your knees without a rope and pulley. Here, I'll get these." Brenna picked up the sketches and Jude's garden basket.

"I saw Colleen Ryan going into the market the other day. She's due any minute. She waddles," Jude said as they stepped into the house. "It's very sweet, but I intend to glide, Madonna-like, through my term."

"You keep thinking that, darling."

Brenna carried the basket back to the little mudroom off the kitchen and spread the drawings out on the counter to dry.

The kettle went on. The biscuit tin came down.

"I told Aidan I'd come into the pub for lunch." With a sheepish grin, Jude bit into a sugar cookie. "But I'm always hungry these days. Nothing spoils my appetite."

"Expecting looks good on you, Jude. I remember the first time I saw you, a year ago, standing in the rain at the door to Faerie Hill Cottage, looking lost. You're found now."

"What a lovely way to put it. Yes, I'm found now. Things I wanted, and could hardly admit even to myself that I wanted, happened."

"You made them happen."

"Some of it." She nibbled on the cookie while Brenna paced the kitchen. "And some things are meant to be. You have to be willing enough, brave enough, to let them happen."

"When you discovered you loved Aidan, did you tell him? Straight out?"

"No, I was afraid to. I didn't trust myself enough."

Brenna's eyes sharpened. "Or him?"

"Or him," Jude admitted. "Before I came here, I never made things happen, and it wasn't courage that had me letting them happen around me or to me. It was fear and passivity. I had to learn the difference. To take charge of some things, to trust others to fall into place."

"But you had to take steps."

"Yes. Are you in love with Shawn?"

Frowning, Brenna sat. "It seems I am. I'm not ashamed to say it's a shock to the system."

"Love looks well on you, Brenna."

At the turn of her own words, Brenna let out a short laugh. "It doesn't feel well. But I suppose I'll get used to it. I'll get the tea," she said when the kettle sputtered.

"No, sit. Have you told him?"

"Not bloody likely." As a thought struck, Brenna looked over quickly as Jude dealt with the tea. "I know married couples tend to tell each other most everything, but-"

"You don't want me to mention this to Aidan."

"I don't."

"Then I won't."

"Thanks." Brenna let out a breath. "It's a matter now of taking those steps, and figuring out which come first. As well as I know him-Shawn, I'm meaning-he's not as predictable as I thought before we- changed things between us."

"The dynamics are different between lovers than they are between friends. Even lifelong friends."

"I've discovered that. Still, I know he often takes a good kick in the ass to get moving in some areas. I'm taking that first step with something that bothers me the most, and that I think, underneath, means the most to him." Shifting her seat, she tugged out the sheets of music.

"One of his songs?"

"I badgered him into giving it to me. There's talent here, isn't there, Jude?"

"I think so."

"Why doesn't he pursue it? You understand how the mind works."

"You're asking a former, and mediocre, psychology professor." Jude set the pot on the table, fetched cups. "But my educated guess would be that he's afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of failing in the thing that matters most. What if it isn't good enough? What if he isn't good enough? There are a lot of us who circle that abyss, Brenna." She poured out the tea. "You're not one of them. You just roll up your sleeves and build a bridge over it."

"Then I'm after building one over his. He gave me this song, and I can do what I like with it. I want to send it to someone who'd know about such things. Who'd know if it's worth buying."

"Without telling Shawn."

"I won't feel guilty about that," Brenna muttered. "If it doesn't work out, he'll never have to know, will he? And if it does, how can he be anything but pleased? I'm not sure how to go about it, or who to send it along to. I thought you might have some ideas on it."

"I'd be wasting my breath trying to talk you out of this?"

"You would."

Jude nodded. "Then I'll save it. I don't know anything about the music business. I could ask my agent, though I don't think she'd-" As an idea formed, she trailed off, worked on it. "What about Magee? He's built theaters. He has to know people in entertainment. Maybe he'd have some connections."

"That's a good notion."

"I can get you his address. You can write to him."

Brenna ran her fingers over the notes and the words on the sheet in front of her. "That takes too long. Do you have a phone number?"

CHAPTER Eighteen

The soft rain became a pounding, and the pounding a flood swept in by gale-force winds that beat against the coastline and rocked the boats at their moorings. For the best part of a week it was too rough to cast a net. From shore to horizon was nothing but angry, churning gray slashed by whitecaps that looked keen-edged enough to slice through a hull.

Those who made their living from the sea waited it out with the grim patience honed in them over generations.

Wind screamed against windows and doors in a constant banshee call and snuck through any crack or crevice to chill the bones. Smoke belched back down chimneys in nasty, fitful streams. Plucking fingers of wind tore a few shingles from the roof of the market so that they careened away like drunken birds. One swooped down and sliced at the back of young Davey O'Leary's head as he rode his bike home with a quart of milk and a dozen eggs. The head required seven stitches. The eggs were a total loss.

Flowers that had wintered over happily enough and those that had begun to show their spring faces were chewed to pieces by the last teeth of winter. Dooryards went to mud.

Tourists steered clear, and reservations were canceled as the storm gleefully battered Ardmore. Power and phone lines gave out on the third day.

The village huddled down, as it had time and again, to weather the storm. Under more than one roof the mood was edgy. Young children, bored and restless, drove their mothers mad. Tears and warmed bottoms were daily occurrences.

Brenna and her father, shielded with slickers and Wellingtons, stood knee-deep in mud and worse as they searched out the break in the Duffys' septic system.

"Filthy work, this." Mick rested against his shovel.

"More than one lowlander's going to find himself wading in shit if this keeps up."

"If those bastards from Waterford had showed up, we'd have the tank pumped out, at least."

"If they ever get here with their big pumper, I say we toss them headfirst into the muck."

"That's my girl."

"Christ Jesus, what a smell. But I think here's the matter, Dad."

They hunkered down, rain beating over their heads, and studied the old cracked line with identical expressions of interest and thoughtfulness on their faces. "It's just as you figured, Dad. The pipe's old and gave out under the added pressure. It runs from tank to field and bursting's turned Mrs. Duffy's nice yard into a dung heap."

"Well, once she's cleared out Kathy'll have herself a well-fertilized garden, won't she?" As the stench was enormous, Mick breathed through his teeth. "It was a good job of you to think of going and getting the PVC pipe ahead of time. We'll replace it and see what's what."

With a grunt, Brenna got to her feet. They squished over to the truck together. The work was nasty, but the teamwork routine. As they worked, she shot little glances at him.

He'd said nothing about Shawn, not a word. And though she understood her father would have some delicacy of feeling about the situation, she couldn't stand having it between them. Unsaid, it was a wedge, and she needed to knock it loose.

"Dad."

"Ha, nearly got her now. Bitch may be cracked, but she's tough on the joinings."

"Dad, you know I'm still seeing Shawn."

Mick rapped his knuckles hard against the pipe and his tool squirted out of his hand like wet soap. Keeping his eyes lowered, he plucked it out again, then wiped it on his equally filthy trousers. "I suppose I do."

"Are you ashamed of me?"

He worked another moment in silence. "Never have you done anything to shame me, Brenna. But the fact is, you're stepping onto boggier ground than we're swimming in. Working with you, respecting and admiring your skills is on the one hand. But on the other, you're my daughter. It's not an easy thing for a man to discuss such areas with his daughter."

"Sex?"

"Damn it, Brenna." Under the filth on his face, his cheeks went pink as peonies.

"It's there, isn't it?" When the ruined pipe was wrenched free, she shoved it aside.

"So is the shit I'm sitting in at the moment, but I'd just as soon not dwell on it. You've been reared as best as your mother and I could, and the steps you take as a grown-up woman are your own. You can't ask me for my blessing in such a thing, Brenna, but I'm not judging you, either."

"He's a good man, Dad."

"When did I say he wasn't?" Exasperated, embarrassed, and wanting an end to the topic at hand, Mick scooted, slithered so they could fit the new pipe.

"It's just- what Mary Kate said last week. She was mad as spit, and we've come to our terms on it. But I don't want you to think that it's cheap between us."

The girl, he thought, was as ever like a terrier with a bone. She wouldn't have done until it was chewed to her satisfaction. "What Mary Kate said to you was uncalled for between sisters, and it's pleased I am the two of you have made it up. As for the other- do you care for him?"

"I do, of course. Yes."

"And respect him?" The slight hesitation had Mick looking over the pipe, meeting Brenna's eyes. "Ah, well, now."

"I do respect him. He has a good brain when he bothers to use it, and he has a kind heart and a good humor. That doesn't make me blind to his faults. I know he's lazy about things, and careless with his own talents."

"On this I do have something to say, though you'll go your own way no matter." He straightened, rolled his shoulders. "You don't fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don't take him at all."

She frowned. "It's not like that, but more of a turning in the right direction."

"Right for who?" He gave her a pat on the arm. "Adjustments can't be all on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what's being built just falls down."

For Shawn, Brenna's appearance at the back door in the middle of the lunch shift was a shock to all his senses. She was filthy from cap to boot and, even with the distance, let off an aroma that watered the eyes.

"Mother of God, what've you been doing?"

"Septic tank," she said cheerfully. "We scraped and hosed off the worst of it."

"You missed a few spots from where I'm standing."

"Well, we've got to do what we can to put Mrs. Duffy's yard back together, so we didn't bother with all of it. But the fact is, we're near to starving."

He held up a hand. "If you're thinking of coming in here, O'Toole, pause and reflect."

"I'm not coming in. I told Dad I'd walk up and get us a couple of sandwiches to keep us going. And we could use a couple bottles of beer."

"Step back out and close the door."

"I will not." To annoy him, she leaned against the jamb. "I'm not hurting anything way over here. Whatever makings you have handy'll do. We aren't particular."

"That's obvious enough." He bumped back the orders he'd been filling and got out bread and meat.

It amused her to see him work with a great deal more speed than was his habit. "We'll be a couple hours yet. Then I've a few things to do."

"I hope bathing's one of them."

"It's on the list. From the looks of things in here, the weather's not slowing down your business."

"Half the village is in day or night. People look for company as much as anything else, and a change of view from their own four walls." He layered meat and cheese generously. "We've a seisiun going most the time and a few heated tempers over whatever sporting match is on the telly now that we've got the generator running."

"It's keeping us hopping as well. I don't think we've had an hour free, Dad and me, since the storm rolled in."

"I'm looking forward to it rolling out. Haven't seen sun nor star in a week now. Tim Riley says she's breaking, though."

It was easy talk, weather and work, the sort she could have with anyone she knew. Wasn't it nice, she mused, that she liked having it with Shawn best of all? That was a kind of treasure, one she hadn't cherished enough in the past.